Chris Rock is opening up about his mental health and years of therapy work.
“I’ve been doing a lot of therapy the last few years, post-COVID, and a lot of it is about not feeling insecure,” Rock, 61, told The New York Times in an interview published on Saturday, October 3. “A lot of it is about ‘you’re enough,’ but I don’t ever really feel insecure about my status, per se.”
He continued, “Occasionally, I’ll meet people that are obviously working harder than me and that’ll make me feel insecure [like] Adam Sandler, Rick Rubin. You’re like, ‘How many things are you doing right now?’ And some people are better with their kids than me. I think I’m a good dad.”
The actor, who shares daughters Lola and Zahra with ex-wife Malaak Compton-Rock, explored the common feeling of insecurity in his upcoming film Misty Green. (Rock wrote, directed and starred in the movie opposite Rosalind Eleazar.)
“When I’m directing, I say, ‘It’s my movie, it’s your part.’ And it was hers, man,” he marveled over Eleazer’s portrayal of the titular character. “Put it this way: I only met Rosalind about a month ago. For the months we were shooting, there was only Misty. She was Misty in the audition. She was Misty through the whole filming process. She never asked me one question that didn’t have to do with the character.”
The comedian went on to admit that it took him 12 years to feel comfortable stepping behind the camera again after 2014’s Top Five.
“Life, COVID, I got divorced, which meant I had to make real money,” he revealed of his directorial hiatus. “Maybe I had some other scripts that the market didn’t respond to. It’s not like I was sitting around. But COVID was a time to be like, ‘OK, what am I doing with my life?’ And other [topics] I don’t feel like talking about. I had a lot of stuff going on the last 12 years.”
Rock and Compton-Rock, 57, divorced in 2016 after two decades of marriage.
“Getting divorce[d], you have to f***ing start over,” he recalled of his breakup in a 2017 Rolling Stone profile. “You get to reset. It’s not a breakdown, but something in your life broke down.”
At the time, Rock admitted that he had been unfaithful.
“Your significant other, if they really love you, has a high opinion of you,” Rock told the outlet. “And you let them down.”
